Volatile and Non-Volatile Switching in Cu-SiO₂Programmable Metallization Cells

In this letter, we propose a CMOS-compatible selector prototype based on a Cu-SiO2programmable metallization cell. With a porous e-beam evaporated SiO2switching layer, the filament ruptures in less than a millisecond. The device exhibits diode-like I-V characteristics with a selectivity of more than 107. This volatile PMC can be changed to a bipolar resistive memory switch if the SiO2switching layer is thermally doped with Cu. Threshold switching is a result of filament dissolution caused by Cu diffusion in SiO2.